The Witcher (2019) s02e06 – Dear Friend…

This episode opens with a profound downer. Henry Cavill and Freya Allan have left the Witcher Winter Wonderland and run into the new flying monster from last episode. Turns out the new monsters are all trying to get to Allan for some reason. There’s the most significant casualty of the season so far and possibly the series.

Cavill and Allan also have some excellent moments; she’s pissed at him for not letting her take the Witcher juice, and he’s trying to make her understand why. Unfortunately, the monster interferes, but the brief character development sets the board for later in the episode.

It’s good they left the Witcher base because the fire mage (Chris Fulton) can teleport there looking for Allan. Anna Shaffer and Kim Bodnia, who have been confabbing about Allan’s mysterious and major powers, survive Fulton’s attack but not without serious injury. It’s also a little weird the rest of the Witchers in the fort don’t hear the ruckus. It must really suck when you’ve got a monster in your village, and you get any Witcher except Cavill or Bodnia. The rest are severely wanting.

The B plot is going to be Mimi Ndiweni’s continued problems controlling the shitty generals—who want Eamon Farren to put her in her place for helping the elves—and the elves, led by Mecia Simson, are more interested in making sure Simson’s pregnancy goes well than playing soldier for Farren and friends.

It’s unclear what Cavill and Allan will get up to in the temple, other than a lot of exposition and backstory (Cavill was a science student as a teenage Witcher); the A-plot’s up in the air. But it’s got Cavill’s old teacher, Adjoa Andoh, who’s a delight, so it doesn’t really matter. She’s got some great scenes with Cavill and Allan. And then Allan makes an age-appropriate friend in student Joseph Payne.

Then Anya Chalotra turns up at the temple, and we get this lengthy reuniting plot for her and Cavill. Running under it is the audience knowing Chalotra’s in league with the witch out to harm Allan, and her affection for Cavill is an undeniable, magical urge, so there’s a lot of conflict going on. Conflict the audience is aware of but not privy to. “Witcher: Season Two” has had a particular plotting. The first two episodes were resolution and set up; the next two were more set up and reveals; now we’re into the home stretch, and the show’s still picking up speed.

The show finally establishes Cavill, Chalotra, and Allan as a trio, with Allan curious about their history; despite Cavill and Chalotra being the subject of the scene, it’s where the character development arc for Allan and Cavill returns. Very well-executed stuff.

There’s some more world-building with Royce Pierreson in a charming antiquarian bookshop where he and the shop owners (Simon Callow and Liz Carr) learn all about Allan’s secret origin. Turns out she’s the World Killer or whatever they call Wonder Woman in the first movie. But only in the wrong hands, she could also bring about good things. Allan, not Wonder Woman. Ships sailed on Wonder Woman.

It’s pure exposition, but Callow and Carr are fantastic, so it evens out.

There’s a questionable fight scene—if anyone’s been waiting for Cavill to do something for five episodes, I imagine it’s a bathing scene, not a slow-motion fight scene—but otherwise, the episode’s well-directed. And the cliffhanger’s a fantastic mix of ominous and thrilling.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e13 – Last of the Time Lords

So, when I started watching “Doctor Who,” I didn’t have any idea the title is a joke. Or can be a joke. Even though I’ve known about the show most of my life… didn’t realize it.

Now, is the “Time Lord” thing… is the “Lord” part really important? I don’t think I’ve ever seen heavy Christ symbolism in a British production before—Life of Brian aside—and it’s really weird to see. It’s also bad because it invalidates the very idea of Freema Agyeman getting anything to do with the show.

Given John Simm at one point mocks her for not being Billie Piper to her face… you’d think she’d get to something more than just blow smoke up David Tennant’s derrière. But no, it turns out smoke blowing is Agyeman’s whole job. What’s the point of having a stronger character and a better performance if the show’s going to shaft you even more than it shafted your predecessor. But with an added, frequently iffy racial element.

Tennant does end up having a good moment in the episode, as he gets yet another showdown with Simm—I don’t even remember if it’s the final showdown—the episode’s got a lot of action and a lot of running and a lot of walking and a lot of showdowns.

And farewells. And surprises. It’s never anywhere near as cute as it ought to be. Tennant, despite that one good moment—and not counting when he’s only doing a voice performance—doesn’t really get much to do in the big season finale. Agyeman gets less, but she got more throughout the season. Sometimes. Even with her part so decimated, when the episode ends with Tennant in the same spot as last season… they should’ve just had him waking up and taking a shower. At least show what the TARDIS living quarters look like.

And Agyeman’s send-off is awkwarder than it ought to be. Especially considering how strong she started. It all feels like a defeat.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e07 – 42

There have to be TV shows where they unintentionally duplicate episodes. Soap operas, whatever. The same plot must get repeated. Unintentionally. Because it very obviously happens intentionally, such as with 42, which is a riff on a great two-parter from last season, only without anything similarly great.

Like, if you’re going to remake something… don’t remake something great and do a middling job of it. It doesn’t help the supporting cast is wanting. It doesn’t help it’s a horror episode with a director who can’t do horror. Though Graeme Harper’s direction is rather wanting overall.

It also has, maybe, a reveal from a “Star Trek” episode. Maybe. It’s from something—and it was used again in an excellent Mike Carey Barbarella comic—but last season’s original version of 42 was also a riff on something else. Riffing on riffs in genre is fine… just have something to do with it. Writer Chris Chibnall has got zip. Oh, wait, he gives Freema Agyeman a love interest—William Ash—but just a temporary one. I guess Ageyman gets a substantive subplot to herself, leaving David Tennant to deal with the more wanting supporting actors. Ash is at least cute (ish), whereas Tennant’s hanging out with captain Michelle Collins (her ship is falling into the black hole… sun, sorry, sun). Collins is… miscast. The part’s not good, Harper’s direction’s not good, but it does seem like Collins is supposed to be doing something more in the part and it never clicks. It’s peculiar.

Or maybe I was just remembering how good the actors were in the previous version of this episode.

Either way… Collins and Tennant are not magic together or even mildly amusing like Agyeman and Ash.

There’s a do-it-yourself Cyclops (X-Men Cyclops) thing going on with the possessed astronauts. Or whatever they’re called. Doesn’t matter.

It’s a pointless episode but should be a lot better.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e06 – The Lazarus Experiment

What is this show’s problem with companions’ mothers? We briefly met new companion Freema Agyeman’s mom, Adjoa Andoh, in the season premiere and she seemed fine.

Nope.

She’s possibly even more annoying than previous companion’s mom Camille Coduri, which doesn’t even seem possible, but the episode manages it, with mystery dweeb Bertie Carvel warning Andoh against Doctor David Tennant. Even as Tennant is saving the world from literal monsters as well as explicitly saving Andoh’s daughters, both Agyeman and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Not to mention strangely henpecked son Reggie Yates. Tennant saves them all.

But Andoh doesn’t like him because he’s nerdy. Is Andoh okay with Mbatha-Raw’s creep boss, Mark Gatiss, who’s the villain and subject of the episode.

We open with Tennant bringing Agyeman home; she’s not his new companion, so she’s got to go home. And he manages to drop her off just twelve hours after picking her up, showing a far better control of time travel than he ever did with previous companion Billie Piper.

Of course, he’s also about to have conversations with Agyeman, which didn’t happen much with Piper.

Anyway. They see on the news how Gatiss is going to change the course of human history so Tennant decides to stick around.

They go to the presentation and Gatiss makes himself young—he starts in old age makeup—and then turns into a monster and decides to eat everyone. So Tennant has to save the day, while convincing the locals Gatiss is a monster—see, he can change back into his human persona after he feeds.

You think once he saves Andoh the second time she’s going to stop being so one-note but nope.

It’s strange the show had a first time writer—Stephen Greenhorn—handle establishing not just Agyeman’s supporting cast but also some kind of conspiracy against the doctor. Especially such a mediocre one. Greenhorn’s teleplay would do better if Gatiss were better—it’s a little much when he gets a Roy Batty moment just so he can artlessly mug—and Richard Clark’s direction’s fine.

Tennant, Agyeman, and Mbatha-Raw are all great.

And it’s significantly better than most Earth episodes, I suppose. Just imagine how much better it would be if the Andoh stuff weren’t bad and the monster didn’t look like mid-nineties video game CGI.

Doctor Who (2005) s03e01 – Smith and Jones

New only-other-billed actor (but technically not the new companion yet) Freema Agyeman guest starred at the end of last season but is playing a different character here. Thank goodness. Agyeman is a medical resident, so it’s going to be the Doctor and a doctor going forward, which is a lot better than a vague IT tech (her previous role). She’s just trying to go about her very regular day—running into an energetic David Tennant on her way to work—and then finding him again when she’s doing her medical rounds. Only he doesn’t remember her.

Or does he remember her. It’s unclear. We’ve spent the episode setup with Agyeman—meeting her entire supporting cast, in what seems to be the show promising they’re going to be entertaining and not annoying like a certain someone’s supporting cast—and the episode does take a while to shift the narrative distance back to the familiar Tennant one. The much bigger emphasis is on Agyeman. And it’s great.

The show itself seems thrilled to have her. Meanwhile, Tennant’s still sad about Rose going—the episode’s an indeterminate period after the Runaway Bride special—but then the episode’s like, look how much more fun we can have with Agyeman and Tennant than we ever did with Tennant and Billie Piper. Why is Russell T. Davies all of a sudden writing a much stronger female character? Well, basically because it’s the character establishing and it’s a lot easier to establish a stronger female character than to build one up from “shop girl.”

The story’s also great—a bunch of intergalactic mercenaries has transported Agyeman’s hospital (including Tennant) to the moon so they can search it for a rogue alien. Presumably not Tennant. It could also be evil patient Anne Reid, who’s absolutely fantastic. The mercenaries are rhino-faced aliens, which works out awesome (especially the budgetary gymnastics).

Not great special effects but sometimes quite good direction from Charlie Palmer, and a great energy thanks to Agyeman—and to the more fun approach to the action.

Now, hopefully they can keep up the momentum.